Skip to main content
Drink

Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber condiment made with cucumbers, onions, salt, sugar, oil, mustard seed, pepper, vinegar, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cucumbers, onions, and salt in a large bowl and let drain for 6 to 8 hours.

Make the catsup

  1. Add brown sugar, sweet oil, mustard seed, black pepper, and boiling vinegar to the drained mixture.

  2. Mix thoroughly and transfer to small jars.

Jar and seal

  1. Fill jars with cold vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  2. Top each jar with a little sweet oil and seal tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the catsup and give it its fresh, crisp body.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma that balances the sweetness and tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that rounds out the vinegar's sharpness.
Mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that deepens as the catsup stands.
Boiling vinegar
Provides acidity that flavors the catsup and helps preserve it.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and richness, and a seal on the surface of each jar.

The step that matters

Sealing the jars. Vinegar and salt inhibit spoilage, but the cover of vinegar and oil keeps the surface of the cucumbers exposed to air as little as possible. Tight sealing keeps the catsup from drying out and limits contamination once jarred.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, sugar, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, mustard, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes